Stuff My Kids Say, Part 19

I haven't had much time to write lately. It turns out four kids is a lot of kids. It's definitely more than three, although I can't confirm if it's as many as five. The fact that four is many children does consume pretty much all of my potential blogging time. 

Hey Rob, how's the family?

Anyway, here's a bunch of stuff the oldest three have said over the last few months...


WORDS

A few candidates for addition to the Kids Dictionary here...

When I was cooking pasta and there was some steam, J yelled out, "quick, turn on the smokesucker!" So I turned on the exhaust fan.

Not long after baby L was born, R described himself and his siblings as the Tucklettes.

Toddler O also likes employing the surname. When he wants our attention he has taken to yelling "Dada Tuck! Mama Tuck!" We don't even know where he learned his last name. It's only been a few months since he started using his own first name - before that, he just referred to himself as "me".

Lately J has called me Mama a few times. So I asked the obvious question.

"Have you called your teacher 'mum' by accident yet?"

"No I haven't!", he quickly replied. Then he added, "well she's pretty old, dude."

I was confused, both by the relevance of the observation and his random use of the word dude. "What do you mean?", I asked.

"She's older so I've called her grandma."


INJURIES (Physical)

R is pretty clumsy and after doing something to hurt himself, he surprisingly called out "I've done a number on myself."

"The number is one!", J added helpfully.

I'm also pretty clumsy. One night when I was getting a bottle for the baby in the dark I kicked my toe on the dining table. A few weeks later is was pretty obvious I was going to lose the toenail. So I thought the boys would appreciate seeing me lift it up and down like it was on a hinge.

J saw this party trick and asked, "so are you going to die?"


INJURIES (Mental)

O was professing his love for his new sibling. "I love baby L," he said.

Mum said, "what about me?"

O said, "I love baby L."

R did something he was asked to do, and this rare act of compliance was enough for him to declare "I'm the best boy in the world!"

Dad said, "what about me?"

R said, "you're the best old man in the world."


FOOD

We needed to take a urine sample from O for some medical tests. R asked what we were doing, so we told him.

"Yuck, why would you want to drink wee?!", he exclaimed. At that point I realised the only time he'd heard of a sample was free food at CostCo.

J is a fussy eater. We were out and he wouldn't eat a hamburger.

"Do you like meat?, I asked.

"Yes."

"Cheese?"

"Yes."

"Bread rolls?"

"Yes"

"Tomato sauce?"

"Yes."

"If you put them all together that's a hamburger."

"But the hamburger also has custard," J said. Now J also doesn't like custard, unless it's thick, and then you can tell him it's cream, and he loves custard.

This might be why it took a few minutes to work out he meant mustard.

O has the best attitude to food of them all. Walking home from child care, I asked him "what did you have for lunch today?"

"Ummm, dinner?"

"Uh, ok. What was dinner then?"

"Pasta." He tells me he has pasta every lunch, I don't think it's always true.

"What kind of pasta?", I asked.

"In my mouth," he said. (The best kind.)


OUT AND ABOUT

We were going out for dinner to a local pub. I opened the boot to get the pram out, and as it lifts, J has taken his seatbelt off and turned around in his seat. He is grinning at me. "HEY MATEY!", he yells. The two old blokes drinking on the verandah in the pub carpark were amused.

Then as we're putting the pram together, he starts excitedly telling me something about school. R interrupts and gets ahead in the story. J looks at him and yells again, "HEY, SPOILERS!"

A few weeks later we are out buying shoes. J informs me, "I'm getting skateboard shoes."

"Skate shoes? Cool!", I say.

"But it doesn't make sense for me to get skateboard shoes unless I have a skateboard."

"Can you learn to ride your bike without training wheels first?", I suggest.

"Okay."

The favourite thing for O to do while we are out is play a game he calls Bye Bye See You Later!

It works like this: O calls out "bye bye, see you later!" and then he runs in a random direction.

The most thrilling version of the game started out of the front of our house when he was supposed to be 'helping' me take down the Christmas lights... in April, which is the earliest I've ever taken down the lights, by the way.

"Bye bye, see you later!", he cried.

It ended when I lifted him up at the end of the street with him shouting, "nooo, I cross road now dada!"


PHILOSOPHY

Three recent statements that have really made me think:

1. One day when told he was being too loud, R contemplated, "it's tricky for me to be quiet, I'm not designed that way."

2. "HEY! Where my pants?!", O yells, daily.

3. I've given R and J a quick rundown on the Easter story a few times. R had obviously dedicated a lot of thinking to its meanings and implications afterwards, because a few weeks later, without any warning, he asked me this:

"Dad, why were people jerks to Jesus?"